Reach has said it is hiring 60 new editorial staff which will include “audience writers” and “general assignment journalists”.
The journalists will work across websites including the Mirror, Express, Manchester Evening News, Daily Record, Birmingham Live and Chronicle Live.
The new roles will also include social video journalists working in newsrooms including the Mirror, Express, Daily Star, Daily Record, Liverpool Echo and Wales Online.
According to Reach, these video journalists “will be tasked with turning the day’s biggest stories into social video, as well as helping to shape the news agenda daily with newsroom leaders”.
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The move follows a major re-organisation in March which saw 300 journalists (out of a company total of around 2,000) move into the Reach Content Hub. These journalists write traffic-driving content which is shared across multiple sites covering trending stories, wellbeing, money and other subjects.
The hub is focused on creating “mainstream popular content” rather than news targeted at particularly local audiences. Reach said more production journalists will now be added to this team with a focus on money, travel and health.
The Reach Distribution Hub will also expand, sharing content on channels like Whatsapp and via email newsletters.
Reach is also creating a new team of 20 “general assignment” journalists whose role will be to cover breaking stories and trending topics when required across the group.
Reach chief digital publisher David Higgerson said: “The new roles we have created reflect our determination to serve audiences where they are, and be experts in the topics which they tell us matters to them most.
“When we launched our Content Hub earlier this year, it represented a new way of working for us and the results so far have been very encouraging. As we hoped, the team has been able to use data to focus on topics we know readers love – for example like TV/film, which often works well across the portfolio, or like gardening and DIY, which we know are particularly popular for a handful of brands.
“This early success has prompted us to continue to think more creatively about how central teams can nimbly support our brand teams, which is how the General Assignments team came to be. With a strong mix of brands and more journalists than any other commercial publisher in the country, it’s empowering to see that we can be greater than the sum of our parts.”
Earlier this month it emerged that Reach journalists were being encouraged to write up to eight stories per day in order to increase online page views (and so advertising revenue).
Reach cut at least 700 jobs last year as it reported revenue down 5.2% year on year in 2023 to £265m. It has struggled with falling online page views largely caused by changes made by Facebook to devalue news publishers on the platform.
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